


We Are Not Words

by Technicolour (Lirriel)



Category: ASTRO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mythology, Chewed Up Mythology, For The Other Stories, Inspired by Hades and Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Some Theology Too
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 07:44:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18988303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirriel/pseuds/Technicolour
Summary: A collection of rockjin fic. Currently includes the musings of Death on what constitutes an end.





	We Are Not Words

 

 

 

Once upon a time Death was a land of rapture, the return to the divine, sanctuary from the ever-turning wheel. There was adulation in death, for it was not an end but a beginning, a new adventure undertaken in a different form.

Jinwoo only knows this: that once child and elder alike would rest their weary head upon his shoulder, and he would carry them away to a respite that was welcoming and warm.

Now the world paints his hands skeleton, smears his palms with blood—and funerals are a time of mourning, for the modern world cannot look beyond itself and see that corporeal into starstuff has never been a condemnation but only ever an inevitable.

But there is death everywhere and so Death is everywhere. He cloaks himself as a prince, as a pauper. He flourishes as a painter, less so as a politician; death is nothing if not truthful. But he always meets that mouth that swallowed his heart in the shape of a pomegranate and those wolf eyes that ever-spied his hunter’s axe—but of late he is _good_ , hardworking and cheerful and sensitive to the currents of the room—and so when his most recent incarnation is tapped as a rapper and leader both, and he catches that smile—

(all teeth like the hound he formed out of cremation ash and black holes)

—well, what is he to do?

He’s never remembered, of course.

He thinks it’s the world itself; at some point the wheel has become old: souls never escape unscathed. Each one he handles has a little nick, a bit of bruising. And though he is not allowed to handle the only soul he has ever wanted to touch, to dip his fingers inside—well, he can only imagine it is all the worse, that it is never held gently.

Sometimes he does not remind his beloved of their promise at all. It is only a promise, after all, counted out in seven seeds. There is not so much time as there used to be, when the earth was young and fresh and deities mingled freely in the presence of mortals. He thinks it is a matter of physics, that an object in motion shall stay in motion—and perhaps it has always been speeding up, this gathering of moments, slowly approaching a critical point where time itself shall shatter and life and death shall be as one again.

He is not a philosopher; this is all idle musings partaken in the back of a practice room, his sweat-coated throat bared to his mirror self, whose shade is always a touch paler. Mirrors, he learned sometime in the third century of civilization (exactly whose he cannot remember; they are forever birthing and aging and dying, sometimes more swiftly than the very men who create them), have a way of reflecting the truth of things. But it is not for mortal eyes, and when Minhyuk flops down beside him, Jinwoo passes the water bottle over without thought.

He still does not know what he will say. Sometimes he has played the dutiful husband and sometimes the loyal wife—the body is but a vessel and Death has no need for a soul when its very existence hinges on the turning of the universe. But other times they have met—and loved—and parted, and he has contented himself with those eyes as dark as fresh-tilled loam, their memory tinder to his burning love. Death is not a possessive lover, for it recognizes the path one takes shall always lead back to it.

He understands that to refer to himself so impersonally, especially when he has pronouns and a name and a family—an _identity_ —is a reminder that he has grown old in his own way. He smiles at the thought, and those dark eyes instantly fixate on him, not missing a single gesture he makes, no matter how little its significance.  

“Hyung?”

And he smiles wider, leans his body into Minhyuk’s and bumps their shoulders together. “Just thinking of our debut.” Death is honest, but Park Jinwoo is not dead.

When Minhyuk laughs, still watching Jinwoo with eyes alight with adoration, he thinks ‘ _Not yet’_ and leans away just as easily. He pulls himself up onto too-tired mortal feet, feels too-mortal joints pop in protest, and snorts when Minhyuk says, “You act like an old man.”

“I have bad knees,” Jinwoo retorts. He thinks he has a right to them, being older than the concept of age itself.  But he also remembers his siblings. They would never be able to bear the weight of a mortal’s body—they are the worst sort of dead, because they never even bothered to live.

And that, he thinks, is why he will never love them as well as he loves these mortals.

 

 

 

When they are older—

(such a laughably short span, these moments measured in days, weeks, months, years, when he once watched a star gutter out and counted the individual rays of light it cast in its final millenia)

—he takes Minhyuk to bed.

This is something he is glad of, in the modern age. Times past dictated a swift arrival to adulthood and far too often they paved the way to death as well. His favorite souls to hold are those that have been properly submerged in experiences, ones that have stewed and soaked and come away carrying flavors unknown to a man’s palate. He recognizes the irony in Death describing a soul as delicious.  

(He knows it is not irony as the Athenians knew it, but words have ever been as alive as the people who spoke them, and he is happy for the change.)

So, he is happy to watch and wait. Minhyuk comes for Jinwoo when he is ready, when he is _past_ ready, and the assault he launches is so enjoyable Jinwoo finds himself carried away in the act of it.

It is not that Death seeks intentionally to harm. But Jinwoo tasted the first tribute and it was human flesh and human blood, no matter what scholars say. His nails are too blunted to draw blood, but when they hit their inevitable high, he cannot keep his teeth from digging into the taut muscle that runs a rope down Minhyuk’s shoulder. The mortal jerks with the feel of it, shouts pain and pleasure, and Jinwoo’s body is flooded with warmth.

They unwind from each other slowly, their bodies slithering like snakes—and Jinwoo can only think of that beautiful serpent with its ruby red tongue and jeweled eyes—and storming Uriel with a sword of flame.

(He will realize later that his mythology has wrapped around itself, but in the heat of the moment he grasps the clearest concept of sin he can imagine, for it is decadent and delightful. Nude humans always are.)  

“That was amazing,” Minhyuk tells him when they have caught their breath. He has come to forgive Jinwoo for the biting bruise left upon his shoulder. It shall pass in days, and it is cold enough he can wear sweaters and jackets and clothes that cloak and conceal in the meantime.

Jinwoo hums back, a rumbling “ _Mmmm_ ,” against Minhyuk’s back that makes his lover laugh. Once upon a time, a Frenchman (it is always Frenchmen, in matters relating to sex) came to refer to orgasmic bliss as “the little death”. Jinwoo has always found he agrees with the expression—it is the slow slipping of consciousness, the rejection of the body. It is the soul loosened of its trappings, and it is why he considers sex the peak of mortal invention; that his many siblings never thought to debase themselves until they saw their supposed lessers take such joy in it only furthers his opinion.

He raises a hand (and his shell remembers it is a body and is thus subject to his will) and runs it down Minhyuk’s spine, marveling in the smoothness of his skin. Beneath his gentle affection, Minhyuk is swift to succumb to slumber, and Jinwoo is left to watch the stars.

He traces Orion and remembers when Artemis slew the only mortal she ever thought to raise high. He also remembers the care they took in stitching his soul into the stars—and his hand passes through Minhyuk’s hair, a reminder that his lover is with him for another turn of the wheel.

If something such as Death were to have a weakness, it would be this: Death cares too much for the living.

 

 

 

The wheel has neither an end nor a beginning. It is Mehen, but it is also Jörmungandr—and again it is a matter of theology (or perhaps philosophy), of whether a world serpent should be elevated onto the same platform as time itself. But Death cares little for theology or philosophy, for all religions die and all philosophers pass. Death is eternal.

But the meaning of it—

(there is forever a meaning, for gods were first birthed to _give_ meaning)

—is this: there is no true conclusion to a story. There is always another chapter, another scene, another word. Sometimes the villain dies, and the princess marries her king only to discover beyond the book’s bounds he is a lazy layabout. The child grows old; the next generation arrives.

Jinwoo pulls the wheel back even as it rolls slowly forward. He smiles at Minhyuk, even as he kisses Minhyuk, even as he loves Minhyuk, even as he breaks Minhyuk’s heart, even as he marries Minhyuk, even as he watches Minhyuk die, even as—even as---even as—

But that is the way of it.

And sometimes he does not become Jinjin. Sometimes Fantagio Music never exists. Sometimes even Park Jinwoo is a concept that never reaches fruition—though he is quick to pass over these turns, for an incorporeal form is a frustration he cannot abide.

 

 

 

The wheel has neither an end nor a beginning.

But there is a story—

(You are allowed to decide if it fits in theology or mythology, Death doesn’t care.)

—There is a story. It tells a tale of a man who once upon a time abducted a nymph.

(What the story does not say is this: that nymphs were sexless creatures because the gods have only ever been a concept clothed in flesh, and mortal skin is _malleable_ ; that the nymph planned their abduction, for most gods regarded the nymphs as only quarry, as easily played as the mortals they pitied and hated and feared in equal measure; that the nymph chose Death, who washed the dead in his river, that they might be cleansed of their sins before they returned to the wheel, because the man had smiled at the nymph. And the nymph had seen only loneliness and kindness inside Death whereas most gods carried only lust.)

Furthermore, the story says, while this man was eventually forced to release this nymph back to their mother goddess, he first tricked them into eating the seeds of a pomegranate, through which they were compelled to always return to his side.

(A note: there was a pomegranate. It was eaten. By all accounts, it was quite delicious. But it was only shared between the two as a representation of their promise, and the nymph returned to the wheel because Death only ever wanted their happiness.)

The story ends with this: the nymph is— _supposedly—_ happily married to this man. (It is a matter of supposition, for who could ever willingly love Death?) They split their time between his underground palace and the world above, and their passage is the movement of the seasons.

(This too is a lie. The nymph lives out their many lives, and Death accompanies them into each new turn of the wheel. He passes them a pomegranate when he is feeling sentimental.

This most recent nymph prefers dried persimmons.)

There is no end to this tale, but Jinwoo is content with that. He is Death, after all, and Death could never love a creature trapped in stagnation. He thinks Minhyuk would never ask him to.

He watches his lover revel in the act of living and finds there is no greater pleasure in existence.  

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Ya know I specifically got into the astro fandom b/c I wanted to write rockjin fic and then my first two fics just… weren’t. lmao
> 
> Then I finally get something published, and it’s this weird take on Hades and Persephone. Oops. I originally had a few more references to other religious / mythological figures but they didn’t quite match the beat of the story. I mean what references I did put in were absolutely mangled for the sake of story anyway so :^) mebbe for the best they got cut lmao
> 
> Things I did not expect to write Jinwoo as: literal Death
> 
> Thank you for reading! The other fics planned for this collection will come slowly (including the inevitable porn fic), but I've got ideas for all of them. Who knows how they'll end up tho; this was originally a soulmate au and was gonna be cute and fluffy :^)


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